NEIGHBORHOOD REPORT: NEW YORK UP CLOSE

NEIGHBORHOOD REPORT: NEW YORK UP CLOSE; Franco's American Foes, Now Aged, Feel Forgotten

By JENNY HOLLAND

Published: May 28, 2000

When it comes to American military lore, certain names have a powerful resonance in the minds of young and old alike -- from Gettysburg to Pearl Harbor to Vietnam. Every Memorial Day, people gather at monuments that honor American soldiers, and gaze at the fields and beaches where they fell.

But the Spanish Civil War, a dress rehearsal for World War II in which 2,800 Americans fought and 900 died, is far less prominent in the national consciousness. The American volunteers, known as the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, fought along with volunteers from other countries to defend the Spanish Republic from attacks by the right-wing Gen. Francisco Franco, who was backed by Hitler and Mussolini. The Soviet Union played a key role in organizing the brigades.

One of the city residents who volunteered was Moe Fishman, the son of Eastern European Jewish immigrants living in Queens, who was 21 years old and working in a laundry when war broke out in 1937. A self-described radical, he was full of the confidence of youth.

''When you're 21, there's no bullet meant for you,'' he said during a recent interview in the cramped offices of the Veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, at 799 Broadway, in Greenwich Village.

As he sailed across the Atlantic, however, the enormity of the decision dawned on him. ''I'm liable to get killed -- this is dangerous!'' he cheerfully remembered thinking. He got out with a bullet in his left leg that has left him with a pronounced limp.

Harry Fisher, a trade union activist who lived on the Lower East Side, remembers becoming enraged after seeing a newsreel of Nazis dragging an elderly Jewish man out of a shop several years before the war in Spain. ''I can't describe the anger I felt,'' he said. ''It came from the heart.''

So when the Young Communist League, of which he was a member, started recruiting volunteers for Spain in 1937, he joined.

''I was one of the lucky ones who was in practically every battle and never got wounded,'' he said.

The brigade was an eclectic bunch that included Zionists and socialists, students and teachers. ''The one common denominator for all of us was antifascism,'' Mr. Fishman said. They had no chain of command, and were racially integrated. Because they were not part of the United States Army, they received no money or supplies, and to this day they have gotten no recognition from the United States.

The stories of the American veterans of the Spanish Civil War are retold at their annual commemoration, which was held in April at the Borough of Manhattan Community College. The attendees sang songs of freedom and rebellion along with Arlo Guthrie and Pete Seeger. The 27 veterans attending received a standing ovation, some leaning on canes, some raising clenched fists.

''We veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade consider ourselves as much part of the American military as all the units which preceded us, and all the units that came after us,'' Mr. Fishman said. ''We fought for our country in a way in which all veterans in this country did, and we do deserve recognition for that.'' JENNY HOLLAND